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| Carlos Diaz, CEO, BioMar |
With a career that began in the
aquaculture industry back in 1995, first fish farming and then feed production,
Carlos Diaz is a veterinarian with an MBA and several post studies in
pharmaceuticals, management, marketing and finance.
Throughout all of these years, Mr Diaz has witnessed the development of our
industry; having occupied several positions in various locations around the
world, before being appointed as BioMar’s CEO in 2014.
According to Mr Diaz, who joined the company in 2000, “BioMar has developed a
lot in all these years,” adding that, “We have a great company, a fantastic
brand, committed people and owners.”
In your time employed within our industry, have you witnessed any significant
changes and how do you feel that BioMar has reacted to these changes?
Definitely, in mature markets like the salmon market, consolidation is a trend.
The commercial and technical skills to deal with this trend and with bigger and
more demanding customers have, of course, been on our agenda for a long time.
In the less developed markets, we see the same trend as in salmon; customers
get more demanding, food safety and sustainability get more important and there
is a growing demand for high quality feed based on the total economic
performance of the feed rather than just on the price per kg.
Overall, farmers
are becoming more and more competent and have an understanding of the
importance that this industry will play in the future and of the importance of
feed in the value chain. This means that we need to be not only a supplier to
the farmers, but also a partner.
Moreover, sustainability and social
responsibility are a must, and also a trend, so as a feed supplier BioMar needs
to adapt and hopefully continue being in the driving seat all of the time.
The
same goes for innovation, research and development, where we need to create new
feeds, concepts and solutions every day and deal with the increasing complexity
of raw materials at volatile prices, getting scarce and more expensive.
Sustainability has become a very important phrase throughout the aquaculture
industry in recent years. But why do you think that this is the case, and why
should companies such as BioMar care about the world that we live in?
Sustainability definitely has become an important concern throughout
aquaculture. BioMar has taken this into account when we redefined the BioMar
Purpose last year, looking at who we are and who we want to be, more than a
strategy only.
In this purpose we identified four guiding principles that we
strive for: Innovation, Cooperation, Performance and Sustainability. Our
purpose is: “We are Innovators dedicated to an efficient and sustainable global
aquaculture”.
This is more than just caring about fish feed. For us,
sustainability is a very serious concern, both in our operations and our way of
doing business. Sustainability also is a tool for working with our customers
and for differentiation, for telling the story and for developing even more
attractive products.
We have created very sophisticated tools that take
sustainability into account, like the BioSustain concept and our Eco-Efficiency
Manager. Having these tools we can really work together with customers and
retailers in order to create value and be proactive towards consumers and other
stakeholders.
With the opening of the fish food factory in Turkey in conjunction with Sagun,
is that a region that BioMar is looking to focused on?
Turkey has been on our radar for a long time, for obvious reasons, we are
leaders in high performing feeds for trout, sea bass and sea bream in Europe,
and Turkey is a big market for these species.
Using our feed factory in Turkey
as a base we also expect to go further east, where we also see some interesting
opportunities.
Read the full interview HERE.
